1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a digital video reproduction method, a digital video reproducing (playing) apparatus and a digital video recording and reproducing (playing) apparatus. In particular the present invention is related to a digital video reproduction method, a digital video reproducing apparatus and a digital video recording and reproducing apparatus in which image reproduction can be started from a specific scene within the video contents.
2. Description of the Related Art
Conventionally, a video reproducing apparatus using magnetic tape as a recording medium is well known. With such video reproducing apparatus of magnetic tape method, information regarding contents recorded in a magnetic tape, for example information related to a scene that is peculiar to the event, is conventionally recorded by means of a spectator filling in a paper label and then attaching the paper label to the magnetic tape. During video reproduction, the spectator searched a desired image and by verifying the contents of the tape by looking at the paper label, fast-forwarding or rewinding the tape to a desired position and then reproduced the image.
On the other hand, nowadays with AV (audio-video) apparatuses becoming digital, random access storage such as a magnetic hard disk came to be adopted in video recording and reproducing apparatuses, thus originating an apparatus for saving video contents in a digital form. A capacity of a magnetic hard disk for saving video contents has become big, allowing recording of hours of video contents. In addition, information regarding the contents of recorded programs can be stored as electronic data and browsing of video contents, has become remarkably easy as compared to the case of a video recording and reproducing apparatus of magnetic type. In the U.S., companies such as TIVO and Replay TV sells such video recording and reproducing apparatus, so that search and reproduction of a spectator's desired image has been satisfied to some extent by employing such video recording and reproducing apparatuses.
In addition, with a DVD (Digital Versatile Disc) reproduction apparatus that have started to spread recently, which is an apparatus adopting random access storage, a set of contents is spliced beforehand into a number of episodes so that an episode can be reproduced promptly when the spectator wants to watch it.
However, in the conventional video reproducing apparatus of magnetic type, there is a problem of time spent in looking for a desired scene, as the spectator has to fast-forward and rewind the tape repeatedly during reproduction of the video when searching for the scene the spectator wants to see.
In a conventional video recording and reproducing apparatus having a random access storage, although it is possible to keep information on the contents related to a set of contents as a whole, information such as event information showing a particular scene included in the set of contents was not provided as an attribute of the contents. Therefore, in order to reproduce a desired scene in a video recording and reproducing apparatus of such type, for example, when reproducing video contents of a baseball match, if a spectator wishes to watch only a scene of a home run, it was necessity for the spectator to look for the desired scene by himself through fast-forwarding and rewinding in a similar way as the video reproducing apparatus of magnetic type. Such operation is inconvenient for the spectator and time consuming. Furthermore, by doing search by such operation of fast-forwarding or rewinding may cause overlooking of a relevant scene.
In spite of the fact that in a conventional DVD reproduction apparatus an episode in video contents is divided into each scene, as a scene is not determined by relevance of the event scene within the episode, in a similar way to a video reproducing apparatus of magnetic type and a video reproducing apparatus of a type having random access storage, it is not possible to easily jump onto a relevant event scene and reproduce it.